afrikanwomen:

Economist Dambisa Moyo on the life and death battle for the world’s resources

People say to me, “What’s it like being an African woman?” I am also an economist. Nobody should be bogged down by how other people define them. People have said I’m not really African. Yes, I am. Those people are wrong and it’s not my business to correct them if they can’t be bothered to go to Africa and look around and see that there really are African doctors and lawyers. People have a penchant for horror stories, but that’s not the way people live [in Africa]. Of course there are wars and disease but in a population of a billion you could argue it’s relatively isolated cases. It’s not the case that the whole continent is in civil war and people are dying of HIV/Aids.’

So why, then, does she think there is so much more pity for Africans than, say, the Chinese?

‘I have no idea. There are more poor people in China than in Africa. More poor people in India than in Africa. My simplistic one line is that it boils down to money. The fact that the Chinese and Indians have delivered economic growth – I think that has shifted the view of them from being the horse to being the rider. Perhaps that’s where Africa has some room to grow.’

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